Bear’s cubs shapeless. 
85 
It is to be feared that the worthy archbishop was some¬ 
what credulous, and listened too readily to stories of the 
Norwegian bears’ docility, as he does not mention that he 
witnessed any of these feats. 
The notion handed down from antiquity, notwith¬ 
standing its manifest absurdity, and the numerous oppor¬ 
tunities that must have occurred for its disproof, that the 
bear’s cubs are shapeless and require to be moulded into 
form by the mother’s tongue, is referred to by Shak- 
speare :— 
“ Like to a chaos, or an unlick’d bear-whelp, 
That carries no impression like the dam.” 
(3 Henry VI., iii. 2, 161.) 
Chester tells us that the bear— 
“ Brings forth at first a thing that’s indigest, 
A lump of flesh without all fashion. 
Which she by often licking brings to rest. 
Making a formal body good and sound. 
Which often in this iland we have found.” 
(. Love’s Martyr, p. 208.) 
Olaus Magnus makes the same mistake. Describing the 
bear, he writes :— 
“ For the most part she useth to bring forth five whelps not much 
greater than mice, without any shape: their flesh is white but they 
have not eyes, nor hair: yet the nails appear: the dams by degrees, 
lick these whelpes into form.” (Page 188.) 
Lyly, who delights in all the absurdities connected 
with ancient natural history, informs us that “ where the 
bear cannot find origanum to heal her griefe, hee blasteth 
all other leaves with his breath ” {Epilogue to Gampaspe ). 
Mr. Furnivall notes that so early as this period bear’s 
grease was recommended for promoting the growth of the 
hair. He quotes the following passage from W. Bulleyn’s 
Boohe of Simples, fol. 76 :— 
“ The beare is a beaste whose flesh is good for mankynd : his fat 
is good, with laudanum, to make an oyntment to heale balde headed 
